


Morning Coffee

by firewoodwander



Series: Hold Your Heart [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, References to Platonic Bed-Sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28691286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewoodwander/pseuds/firewoodwander
Summary: It’s no secret that Hunter often struggles to sleep. Or stay sleeping, for that matter. So it’s no surprise for him to find himself awake at stupid o’clock in the morning, listening to the gentle clatter and clang of metal that Tech so clearly is trying to mask while he tinkers in his room. He always does this when he can’t sleep, and Hunter at least appreciates the effort to keep quiet. Crosshair tends to sit in the dark to clean and catalogue every weapon he can find. Wrecker makes things with his hands or on a datapad. Echo… Well. They’re working on that.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo & Tech (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Crosshair (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) & CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo
Series: Hold Your Heart [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017046
Kudos: 24





	Morning Coffee

Tech curses under his breath as he wrestles with a particularly stubborn bolt on the upgraded navicomp casing. It’s an awkward angle, standing in the middle of the common area with the casing under one arm and his hydrospanner in the other, but he’d already been on his way to the cockpit when he’d started fiddling… 

Anyway, now that he’s here, he might as well admit there’s something that’s been bothering him these past few days: every morning he gets up, Echo is nowhere to be seen. His makeshift bunk is still there—neat and made and pristine—but no matter when Tech checks, he’s not in anywhere else he would reasonably be. 

At first he’d put it down to early-morning discussions with Hunter. They were close, he and Echo, with more than just the basest of biology in common (though, understandably, such was also one of many bonding points). When asked, however, Hunter had reported no idea of what Echo got up to between times. So then he’d thought maybe he was with Wrecker, doing… Whatever things Wrecker enjoyed doing with Echo. They were friends too, but Wrecker wasn’t so much one for voluntary early starts, and Echo wouldn’t disturb him on purpose. It wouldn’t be like him.

Yet neither was Crosshair a morning person. At all, in fact. But since Echo certainly wasn’t hanging around with  _ Tech, _ where the hell else would he be? Not that Tech would mind if he hung around him. He likes Echo, too.

But Tech isn’t  _ stupid, _ no. He might have a fair bit of trouble with social subtext from time to time, but he’s neither visually blind nor scent-blind. Crosshair has been following Echo around like some sort of ridiculous, soft and protective hound of late, and Echo hasn’t exactly dissuaded him. And with all that Tech would go as far as to say he  _ enjoys _ the attention of their resident grouch, it’s unlikely to happen soon. 

But if something had happened, they would know about it, right? One of them would tell the rest of them. They’re a team. That’s how they work.

Tech looks again at Echo’s bunk. It’s one of the practical medical gurneys pulled out from the wall with two thin mattresses piled atop it, folded under a spare set of plain sheets and blanket and a sorry-looking pillow. Of which there used to be two, in an attempt to make them not-so-sorry-looking. Hell, the whole thing looks like it hasn’t been touched for days. But Echo sleeps, Tech knows he does. Since Crosshair last disappeared out back with him only a little after the terrifying, heart-rending unexpected heat episode they’d had, he’s been sleeping so much better than he has since he joined—

Muffled, somewhere behind the closest bulkheads, Tech hears the tell-tale metallic footsteps of Echo moving about. The door to Crosshair’s room swishes open before he can unfreeze from his surprise, and out Echo steps, yawning and scrubbing at his face and looking generally as if he’s just rolled out of bed. 

Crosshair’s, from the looks.

“Morning,” he greets, already as chipper as usual.

“Morning,” Tech replies. And then, just to be a shit, he smirks. “Sleep well?”

It has the desired effect. Echo ducks his head and blushes, tongue darting across his bottom lip as he rubs the plate on the back of his neck and struggles not to smile.

“I did thanks. Did you? You’re up early today.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” He gestures to the casing with the hydrospanner. “Just wanted to get this fixed in place. Had… some thoughts I wanted to ignore a little longer.”

Echo cocks his head then, all attention and concern. “Bad thoughts? Is it something I can help you with?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Tech says, laughing a little to mask the nerves and waving the spanner around again. “Not bad thoughts. Just, er, not needed right now. That’s all. Don’t want so many distractions.”

Nodding, Echo smiles softly at him. For a moment Tech thinks he might actually  _ want _ to talk to Echo about it, that he’d probably understand, wouldn’t judge, but wouldn’t needle him into the next life like Crosshair or Wrecker might. But no, truly, they all have enough on their plates. They  _ are _ unnecessary thoughts. And none of them need that right now. 

“So what’s the appeal?” he asks instead, checking once again to see that the last fastenings are tight-but-not-too-tight. “Is it the chronic bastard syndrome? The way his bones try to stick you in every uncomfortable place to exist when he’s barely even touching you? Or is it that thousand yard stare? I’ve heard people are into that kind of thing. I’ll warn you now though, that’s no  _ deep in thought _ look; I don’t know if a single coherently deep sentence has ever been parsed by that brain—”

“Tech!”

Echo has the back of a hand pressed to his mouth to hide his giggling. Tech shrugs at him innocently. 

“It’s true!”

“Maybe so,” Echo concedes, “but there’s no need to be mean where he’s not around to defend himself.”

On the other side of the wall is another muffled thump. 

_ “I can hear you!” _

Tech rolls his eyes and hefts the casing more securely under his arm. “Come on. Before we piss off the sleeping nexu.”

“More like tooka,” Echo snorts. “Tell you what, you go fix that in, I’ll make us some caf. And then if you want I can tell you  _ all _ about the appeal.”

“Oh stars,” Tech snickers. “If that’s the price of caf these days I might have to find another acceptable stim source.”

With a laugh and a wave behind him, Echo sets off towards the galley with a genuine carefree air that Tech is inordinately proud of. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement. After all, secrets don’t seem to last long in close quarters anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me here on [tumblr!](https://firewoodwander.tumblr.com/)


End file.
